Dear Sasha, I have been thinking about women in the escort/stripping business and wondering if it is hard for them to get mortgages. I’m a woman in the mortgage business and would like to help women in the sex industry buy their own homes and qualify for mortgages.
What’s the best way for me to reach them? Is there a magazine or newspaper that is geared to this business that they read regularly? Any suggestions you have would be great.
—Joanne?
Dear Joanne,
You’re correct in assuming that a lot of sex workers feel disenfranchised from the professional world and need encouragement navigating “legitimate” business terrain. As you yourself are aware, it’s fine to sell earth but dirt’s another story. The advertising page at Spread Magazine online also keenly notes, “Sex workers are one of the few consumer markets with a significant disposable income that remains untapped by most advertisers. Twenty-five years ago, the LGBT population was an untapped market; now it represents one of the fastest growing consumer sectors in the country. Sex workers are the untapped market of today.”
If you want to advertise in print, check out Spread at www.spreadmagazine.org.
I e-mailed a couple of women I know in the business and here’s what I got back from them in terms of online communities and message boards:
One popular Canadian resource for strippers is www.nakedtruth.ca. Annie Temple moderates this site and you can contact her directly through it. If you plan on working internationally, there’s also www.stripperweb.com.
As for escorts, many Canadian cities host online review services. There’s merb.ca in Montreal and perb.ca on the Pacific coast. I would also have a look at the Sex Work Assistance Guide at www.sex-work.org.
Dear Sasha, I’m writing a play about the relationship between a female sex worker and one of her clients (not Pretty Woman). The problem I’m having is that most material I’ve looked at in my research tends to characterize sex workers in stereotypical ways (victims, drug addicts etc.) and I am trying to write a character who’s more in control of their life and circumstances than that. I was hoping I could email you a few questions about people who work in the sex biz, and that you might know of other resources that might be able to help me out.
—Mark
Dear Mark,
Sure I’ll help, but first I want you to make me a few promises.
1. No heart of gold. I’m fucking serious.
2. A cash donation to a local pro sex worker organization.
See, usually I charge a research fee for people clearly writing for assistance outside of the context of my column. (Right now you’re probably saying to yourself, “I didn’t want this published! Now everyone’s going to steal my idea about a smart whore and her john!”). But you didn’t say, “don’t publish this” and in doing so, gave me the opportunity to make some money off my knowledge as well as publicly discourage people from writing the most hackneyed script about sex workers since, well Pretty Woman. To be extra clear Mark, you are writing Pretty Woman, just the 2007 version (actually, the 1997 version but whatever) and on top of it, like so many artists, you think it’s okay to profit off the sleazy prestige of sex workers without offering them compensation in advance for their time and insight.
If you still want to pursue your script, then I suggest you visit www.goodvibes.com or www.cleispress.com and look through the sex-worker-in-control-of-her-life memoirs or collections. There’s also the 40 jillion sex-worker-in-control-of-her-life blogs you can cull from. Start with http://collegecallgirl.blogspot.com and simply follow the links. The Web site for Stella (www.chezstella.org) also contains links to sex-worker-in-control-of-her-life support organizations worldwide.
My final advice? Consider instead writing a play about the adventures of a guy who’s trying to write a play about an in-control-of-her-life sex worker and her client. Now that’s an original.
Got any questions for Sasha? E-MAIL: POULEDELUXE@YAHOO.COM |
